Iranian shelling kills 2 Kurdish separatists in N. Iraq

Two members of an Iranian Kurdish separatist group were reportedly killed Wednesday when the Iranian army shelled one of the group’s encampments in Iraq’s northeastern Erbil province.

In a statement, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (DPIK) said two of its members had been killed in Iraq by Iranian cross-border artillery fire, which, the group said, had been ongoing since Tuesday afternoon.

According to the DPIK, the shelling has also resulted in considerable material damage in areas adjacent to its encampments east of Erbil city near the Iraq-Iran border.

Ihsan Celebi, a local official in the town of Sidekan north of Erbil, told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday that residents had been evacuated from three villages in the vicinity of the shelling.

The Iranian army sporadically shells areas inside northeastern Iraq near the mountainous border region, which it considers a DPIK stronghold.

Last Wednesday, the DPIK claimed to have killed one member of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps in the city of Piranshahr in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, not far from the Iraqi border.

An armed leftist party comprised of Iranian Kurds, the DPIK calls for full self-determination for the region’s Kurdish population.

Since a fragile cease-fire collapsed in 2015, the DPIK has clashed several times with Iranian forces.